I think that we need to reasses all of our initiatives, regroup, and
relaunch to the company with new commitments to quality and education. To
date, we have had some success, but we have fallen far short of our
potential.

We have a compelling set of ideas for the development of internet financial services strategies and systems.

patterns are a good approach and well suited to Destiny's work and internet time development.

The pattern server has been moderately effective, we've generated a moderate amount of pattern content,
and many non-webcycle people have contributed.

We've had some acceptance in the organization.

Negative

Most people can't explain WebCycle or said "compelling ideas".

Most people don't know what the WebCycle team does

A majority of our patterns are mediocre in concept and full of basic errors
in grammar and spelling; we have had little or no success in improving
quality across the board and we have no proceses for doing so moving
forward.

We have limited success in reviewing patterns at a concepts, we have no
process for educating Destiny on the Alexandrian mentality - what patterns
are, why they are valuable, how to use the pattern language, and how to
think of the world in pattern terms, and how to write them.

Our collection of patterns is decidedly mediocre. There are several good ones, such
as (ironically) swarm which are clearly defined, right to the point, make complete sense, yet
are abstract and have no need to specify a Process. We have no process or plan for improving the
vast majority of patterns which are not on the level - even at the simple level involving the use of
good grammar and spelling.

My conclusion is that a good pattern is the hardest thing in the world to write. It takes real
understanding of the subject. It is not accident that Skip would write a good swarm pattern. Swarm
is not profound in the way that the best of Alexander's patterns are, but can any software patterns
be that way? It is my feeling that we should treat patterns as the ultimate in work at Destiny -
that writing a single profound pattern will be the hardest thing that anyone will do at Destiny,
not something everyone will do on a day to day basis. Ironically, we've lowered the bar!
We should exalt the best patterns and reward hard work in writing good patterns. The bar should be
high with substantial rewards for clearing it.

The purpose of the pattern server is to replace a printed book in the following ways:

distribute existing patterns in an up-to-the-minute form

providing a sufficiently structured means for anyone to contribute new patterns (in realtime)

expose the structure of the patterns, and create an "experience space" that is easy to draw upon.

It has worked in #1 and #2 above quite well. However, the it fails on the
third point for an unexpected reason: it just isn't relevant on a day to
day based, and therefore, despite the success of #1 and #2, it might as
well be a printed book (with some exceptions) given how infrequently
most people look at it. When a reference book sits on your desk, you only
open it when you know you need it, which means, you know what you're
looking for. If you don't know what's in it, you may never open it.

So the pattern server has failed in the following ways:

It is not relevant to people on a day-to-day basis, so it is out of sight and out of mind.

It does not expose the structure of the pattern language as a whole; we still
don't know what is in the
server above and beyond a book because it suffers from the same problem. It sits away on the server
just like a book sits on your desk, and you can pull up one at a time, and there are no
overviews or ways to semantically connect the concepts that are inside the patterns.

commitment to improving the quality of webcycle materials across the board and at every level,
particularly raising the bar for patterns

new version of the pattern server

WebCycle should relaunch itself the company in an Event, and roll out new plans along with
the successor to the pattern server. This will give a fresh face to every aspect of WebCycle.
People will be excited to hear a well presented and easy to understand WebCycle message, new programs,
new commitments, and a more useful technology with much more compelling features.

A primary feature of the first pattern server was collaborative writing insofar as anyone could write
a new pattern or edit an existing one. Enabling people to contribute their experience and knowledge
as they see fit and whenever they want to is undoubtedly good in an open environment.

But as I said above, a good pattern is the hardest thing to write. We must keep the bar high and reward
hard work to write the best patterns. Having said that, what does the pattern server then become?
I think that we need to lower the bar for what constitutes contributable knowledge as well as raise
the bar for patterns. What do we know? Not all of our knowledge is in the form of patterns.
I know C++. The TNT system used Granite Foundation and C++. Paul Rehmet was tech lead on TNT.
Paul knows java. WebLogic is a Java application server. TNT produced a plan for implementing a Ping Test.
Ping Test is about testing early and often, which is about Reducing Risk.

The successor to the pattern server is more like a knowledge management system that allows such bits of
associative knowledge to be entered, linked, surfed, searched through the internet (intranet). Its
purpose is to create a web of associations (Russell knows java; weblogic uses java; weblogic
is an application server; ...). Things like "java", "weblogic", etc are basic descriptions and
relevant references which anyone can add and edit;
the associations among them show how they are related from Destiny's perspective.

The ultimate purpose of such a system is to allow people to contribute
useful, meaningful but not so abstract knowledge. It will connect
information that is useful on a day-to-day basis to our patterns. the
system is useful on its own without patterns, through the power of
associative memory that can be built collaboratively (the premise of
hypertext), but when this hyperlinked information space is connected to
abstractions like patterns, we not only see who wrote patterns and on what
projects they were used, but why. It brings patterns down to earth.